In the era of the CD-ROM, it is hard to remember how one functioned before the advent of searchable electronic tools, to say nothing of the concordance and the other trappings of modern scholarly research.Rashbam’s commentary often reminds us of the importance—and power—of sheer mastery of the biblical corpus for solving difficult interpretive problems.

Our parashah features one classic example.What is classically known as the fourth plague is described as ערוב by the Torah.Unfortunately, the word appears 7 times in Shemot chapter 8 but is never explicitly defined.How do you figure out what a word like that means?If you are a commentator like Rashbam, you reach for other parts of the Bible to unlock the obscure meaning.In this case—almost certainly influenced by the earlier interpretation offered by Targum Yonatan here—he suggests that ערוב refers to wolves.Why are wolves called ערוב?Rashbam notes that there are two verses where the word זאב is linked to the root ערב, in the sense of nighttime.Wolves prowl in the dark (ערב) and therefore their adjectival form is ערוב, just as other nouns like עמק (valley) generate adjectives like עמוק (deep).Only a stunning mastery of Tanakh could really yield this sort of prooftext, which essentially requires knowledge of all places where the root ערב appears in Tanakh (there are well over 300) such that one can think about the places where it is used in conjunction with animals that might be plausible matches for this plague.

I should also note that if we employ Rambam’s approach of כפל לשון (see earlier post), we might arrive at two very different definition of ערוב.Tehillim 78 features a brief recounting of Israelite history, including God’s punishment of the Egyptians:

Verse 44 clearly features a parallel structure with each half referring to the transformation of the Nile into blood.Verse 46 similarly features parallel descriptions of locusts devastating the land, and other verses in this passage seem to be in parallel structure as well.Following this pattern, perhaps ערוב is parallel to צפרדע and refers to some sort of amphibian or other creature similar to frogs?Or, perhaps following Seforno’s interpretation of צפרדע as crocodile, we are dealing with something even more threatening?

Another possibility is opened up by Tehillim 105, which has a distinct account of this narrative:

Here, each verse describes a single plague, whether that of darkness, blood, frogs, hail, locusts, or death of the first-born.The only exception is verse 31, which seems to speak about both ערוב and lice.But what if this verse hews to the pattern of the rest of the section and ערוב and lice are essentially the same thing, either different terms for the same plague or similar invasions of insects?

1 Comments:

Thanks for your ideas about the meaning of the Hebrew arov. The interpretation of this Hebrew word is difficult. It is usually understood in Hebrew as meaning "wild animals" (in a general sense), and in Tehillim 78:45 this is possible, since it says, arov were sent, and devoured them. Flies or lice cannot eat people, but wild animals can. Perhaps it was wild animals that normally come out an night (erev). Arov could also be a mixture of (wild) animals.

About Me

I have studied at Yeshivat Ma'ale Gilboa (www.maalegilboa.org) and received semikhah from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, and received a Ph.D. in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary. I teach Talmud and Halakhah at Yeshivat Hadar (www.mechonhadar.org).